Hurricanes vs Palm Trees

[Zinjanthropos]

Was watching clips of the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico when during one video they showed a stretch of natural vegetation along a part of the coast. What I noticed was that despite the pounding, there were still a number of palm trees that survived, weren't uprooted or did not break. Now I'm sure that if left untouched the vegetation would recover naturally but I got to thinking that the surviving trees may have an inherent quality(ies) not present in the destroyed trees that would be beneficial to future generations of palms. Yes, some of surviving catastrophic natural events is luck but how much of it is the result of natural selection? Surely palm trees have evolved to survive most of what nature has thrown at it in the past and I think the result of that is evident in these videos. Just another way of looking at things....thanks

[C C]

Surely palm trees have evolved to survive most of what nature has thrown at it in the past and I think the result of that is evident in these videos. Just another way of looking at things....thanks

They can also endure tsunamis well. Their trunk structure is fibrous, malleable, and flexible. Palm trees supposedly have a network of roots spreading out wide in upper levels of the soil that bolster the deeper, denser, central ball of them. The upper part of a palm tree lacks the spreading, wind-catching branches of familiar deciduous trees, with fronds that fold up during bad weather.

Palm trees can vary though, and often don't survive as well when planted in regions that lack some conditions which they're indigenous to, even if those places are warm enough. Their family ancestry dates back circa a 100 million years ago.

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[C C]

[...] What I noticed was that despite the pounding, there were still a number of palm trees that survived, weren't uprooted or did not break. [...] Yes, some of surviving catastrophic natural events is luck but how much of it is the result of natural selection? Surely palm trees have evolved to survive most of what nature has thrown at it in the past and I think the result of that is evident in these videos. [...]

Good observation, too.

All I ever glean from these disasters is the various commentators' emphasis on the destruction and individual stories of human misery / tragedy. Kind of half-snoozing through that generic template and feeling guilty about it till some rarer event in world troubles finally comes along. Or something atypical in the hurricane coverages itself, like "This is the only mobile phone tower on the whole island [a very big island] that still works, and you can see its resulting magnet-like attraction and importance from the sprawling traffic congestion accumulating in this area from distant towns and cities. People who haven't been able to contact their misplaced loved ones and friends for hours."

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[Zinjanthropos]

Another thing I notice is the absence of birds. I can understand when the wind is blowing but where in hell do they go? Now I've heard that birds flock together and fly at the edges of a hurricane to ride it out, returning when safe to do so. I'll have to look that one up later.

[stryder]

This post reminded me of a Chinese proverb which incidentally was closely related to one of Aesop's Fables.

The Oak and the Reed (wikipedia.org)

Coconut palms by the very definition of their evolution are hardy and can easily deal with windswept beaches. I remember some article mentioning about how the coconuts themselves can drift at see and land on beaches to then grow into tree's, the tree's and their rootsystems aid in collecting the sands and over time an island shape can both grow and wean both from the continued arrival of coconuts and the eventual breakdown of the rootsystems themselves causing the tree's to fall into the water.

This causes sand bank islands to literally move over time and it leads to some of the rather unusual shapes of islands. (It's also why charting the sea in times past was a little awkward since an island could move by the time a ship returned.)

[Zinjanthropos]

I'm thinking that after a palm (or palms) has succumbed to the hurricane there will be areas available providing a chance for competitive plants to claim territory. I wonder how the palm tree handles this? I assume without actually knowing that the tree is quick to retake, it's about all I can think of unless it does something to the soil to prevent other plants from germinating.

Maybe it drops coconuts on any potential rival...lol